1. Is it just my ignorance, or do software makers do an artful job of NOT being clear about which soft is mainly a sequencer and which is mainly a synth? Seems to me that most product descriptions try and say that the soft is a "complete" package. This to me is confusing.

2. I am wondering about the soft from Native Instruments.
In reading about their products, they seem pretty hot, but I have heard very little about them on the couple of forums that I have checked into.

Opinions please.

Thanks,
charlie

its always seemed obvious to me but if you are new to the scene then it might be a bit confusing... so which product from Native Instruments are you trying to figure out?

Reaktor and Reaktor Sessions seem pretty interesting, and I am wondering why I have not seen more people talking about NI soft.??

NI software is generally well-respected. They've not done anything for OS X yet (except Traktor 2, their DJ package) so this year they'll probably be launching OS X updates of their range. If they've got any sense they will, anyway.

As for product descriptions, a company isn't going to say, "Well, we do this really well, but we absolutely suck at that"! A lot of the available software does so much it almost can do it all - but in reality, everybody here probably has a selection of software from different manufacturers. Having an extra colour in your paintbox can't hurt, right?

Check out the NI site - if you like the sound of their gear, you'd probably not regret buying it. I don't have any myself, but I do like the look of Battery (the drum machine). When that comes to OS X, I might well buy it.

Reaktor is a really cool soft synth (what I can tell from articles I have read) but it can get really complex as well. I actually don't have any NI software either but have consider the FM7 until I got a DX card for my Yamaha CS6x. As far as their soft synths are concerned though... they are well respected as I have read many articles about remix artists and other musicians that rely on a lot of their software. But you are right that not many people really talk about NI stuff much around here. But... that can be a good thing as maybe people have it and just not talking about it because they have no problems with it.